British Sikh Community

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Gareth Johnson

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point and I pay tribute to his work with the Sikh community in Milton Keynes. He gives another example of how Sikh temples are not just places of worship, but a hub where the whole community can congregate and do good work for the benefit of others.

The strong work ethic in the Sikh community is worthy of note. Sikhs have been disproportionately successful in business in this country. They have a deserved reputation for having a strong work ethic. I believe that Sikhs are second only to Jews in how financially productive they are as a religious group. Their belief in hard work and the importance of the family has been the reason for their success in the United Kingdom. A cursory look at The Sunday Times rich list throws up a clear and disproportionately high number of successful Sikhs. Their determination to strive for success is a trait that is very much to their credit.

There are many success stories of Sikh integration into the British way of life, but we must ensure that we do not become complacent. In the House in 2010, I raised the searching of turbans at British airports with the then Secretary of State for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond). That issue is important for the Sikh community. We need to preserve security on aeroplanes, but we should recognise the significant impact on a Sikh of searching a turban, and we must ensure that all other measures, such as scanning, are used before doing so. EU regulations have not been appropriate in the past, and I pay tribute to the Department for Transport’s work on tackling the issue with the seriousness it deserves. It seems that common sense will now prevail.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I pay huge tribute to the enormous contribution the Sikh community has made to life in Dudley over so many years. A hard-working professional constituent who is a respected member of our community was travelling back from Spain with his company. His employers could vouch for him, but he was humiliated at the airport in Spain where the security guards insisted that he remove his turban. There had been no scanning, and there were no facilities for retying his turban—the necessary equipment was in his suitcase and already on the plane. That was absolutely unacceptable treatment. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should do much more with the European Community to put pressure on other countries, especially Spain, so that constituents are not treated like that in future?

[Gareth Johnson]

That is an extremely important point, and the case that the hon. Gentleman mentions is worrying.